Content Marketing
5 Best Content Marketing Videos of All Time

5 Best Content Marketing Videos of All Time

November 22, 2021
6 min read

One of the best ways to learn more about great content marketing is hearing advice straight from the experts. We’ve compiled 5 of the best content marketing videos of all time.

From content marketing’s history to it’s unpredictable future, connecting with customers through empathy, building brand advocates and more — the videos on this list cover topics brands in every industry need to know.

Quick Takeaways

  • The internet has removed the traditional intermediary between brand and consumer and provided an unprecedented platform for accessibility and scale.
  • Smart content marketers don’t focus strictly on numbers, but also account for the true value and connection they’re creating for customers.
  • One of the most effective strategies for building brand visibility and trust is creating advocates from a loyal customer base.
  • Empathy based marketing is at the foundation of successful content marketing. Brands must focus on understanding the customer’s perspective and solving the problems they experience.

5 Best Content Marketing Videos of All Time

The Story of Content: Rise of the New Marketing

Content Marketing Institute

 

Whether you’re a new or seasoned content marketer, you’ll want to take time to watch The Story of Content by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). It’s a powerful documentary that starts by moving through the evolution of marketing, from its “golden ages” in the mid 20th century (a la Mad Men) to the present, with content as king.

One of the most interesting ideas in this video is that content marketing is actually nothing new. John Deere has been successfully using it through their magazine, The Furrow, since the 19th century (you read that right).

The difference is that now it has a massive capacity for speed and scale not possible before the internet.

Brands willing to jump on opportunities presented by these new technologies are gaining huge wins. Blendtec used a months-old YouTube website to start making “Will it Blend?” videos, which increased their sales by 1000% (!) and now have hundreds of millions of views. Red Bull hit the nail on the head when they started creating video content to tap into people’s passions, not their demographic information. The company now has an entire arm dedicated to media.

Greg McCoy, Senior Archivist at Procter & Gamble put it aptly in the video: “You can try to sell your story, or you can try to tell your story.”

Today, consumers are savvier than ever and the truth is, they know when they’re being sold or marketed to. Smart brands are taking the hard sell out of every single interaction and leaning into opportunities to genuinely tell their story, create high-value content, and build brand trust to create long-lasting relationships with their customers.

Being a Content Marketing Animal

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vee is not for the faint of heart, but he does know his stuff. Being a Content Marketing Animal is his widely known talk from Online Marketing Rockstars 2015. In it, he discusses the lopsided emphasis marketers put on data analytics without looking closely at true value or the real customer connection.

Take Samsung, Gary tells us in the talk (sorry, Samsung!). All he wanted to do was keep up with an impending trade being made by the New York Jets. Instead, he ended up constantly clicking on an annoying banner ad that popped up each time he visited the sports news website.

Gary clicked on the ad 8 times, according to his story — the metrics must have looked great for the brand running the ad. In reality? Gary was cursing (literally) at the inconvenience of having to continually click out of it. The real ROI was 0. People like Gary who were seeing the ad weren’t even looking at it before they hit the X.

Marketers in 2021 have a huge platform for sharing their brand message. The problem? So does everyone else. The most successful brands must find a way to get noticed amidst all the other noise, and that solution lies with creating great content.

According to Gary, content marketers won’t win in the long-term playing numbers games with data metrics. Instead, it’s essential to balance the quantitative with qualitative — to involve “both the brain and the heart.”

Some specific tactics for doing this:

Stop disrupting what people are doing

Ads on social media work so well because they live naturally in user feeds, meaning they don’t disrupt their activity.

Pay attention to emerging technologies

It doesn’t help to continually jump on board with trends once they are saturated. Gary uses an example of his days as a pioneer email marketer in the 1990s, when he was getting open rates greater than 90% — a pipe dream in today’s marketing environment.

Continually focus on making a lasting connection with customers

Putting all your eggs in one basket (i.e. tactic, technology, etc.) is a bad idea in a world where things are changing so quickly. Instead, create content with an authentic brand message that resonates on any channel.

Content Marketing Strategy 2030

Joe Pulizzi

 

Think back to 2010. What were you doing? How were you marketing? Did you ever dream that the marketing world would look the way it does right now? Given that Instagram, Tik Tok, iPads and many of the technologies we use to reach our customers didn’t even exist yet, the answer is probably not.

In his keynote talk at Content Marketing World 2019, industry guru Joe Pulizzi helps you set your strategy for 2030.

That doesn’t mean we can predict technologies or begin to know what the world might look like in another ten years. Still, we can be more agile, proactive, sophisticated content marketers using the tactics Joe covers in his talk, which include:

Get internal buy-in

Educate leaders in your organization. Teach them about the craft of content marketing and its value. Leave archaic marketing tactics behind and focus on creating real value for customers in your marketing strategy.

Self-sustain by driving multiple revenue lines

Focus on marketing goals, but bake in additional plans for direct revenue with content. To demonstrate this tactic, Joe uses the Cleveland Clinic as an example. Their Health Essentials series tripled its earned revenue between 2016-2019 and now serves as a key driver of new patient acquisition.

Learn the art of content acquisition

Smart brands are buying brand assets and media channels from other companies to increase their audience and expand their brand offerings. (Joe uses the examples of Raspberry Pi buying tech magazines and Arrow Electronics buying UBM’s media portfolio.)

Do one thing great

You can’t do everything at once. Succeed at what you’re good at, don’t force things that aren’t working, and build on your success incrementally to eventually earn bigger results.

The Best Marketing Strategy No One is Focusing On

Pat Flynn

This talk from Pat Flynn is pretty new — from October 2021 — but it already makes our all-time list because it focuses on something so important: creating a brand advocate army from your loyal customer base.

As content marketers, we focus so much on new customer acquisition that we often miss one of the biggest (and most cost-effective) ways to market our brand: having our customers do it for us. In Pat’s words, we need to “create superfans” in our active audience.

How do we do it? The key is through community building. Consumers today trust peer reviews and fellow consumers way more than any direct brand message. When you build a community of loyal customers who feel connected not only to your brand but to each other, they’re much more likely to do things like talk about your brand and share it on social media.

To really make this happen, brands must expand their strategy to focus on making current customers feel valued. When they do, they can’t help but share their great experience.

Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care

Cleveland Clinic

While this isn’t a talk like the rest of the videos on this list, we think it warrants a place here because of its powerful message around empathy. Empathy, or the capacity to truly see and feel from another’s perspective, is a core part of successful content marketing.

People are rarely looking for a specific product or service — they’re looking for ways to solve their problems. Brands that look at their customers not as a number, but as people and organizations with real challenges, experiences, and needs, find better connection and ultimately higher content marketing ROI.

In this video, Cleveland Clinic communicates the importance of empathy in patient care, but content marketers (and really every human being) can learn and apply its impactful message.

Execute your content strategy with confidence

We hope these content marketing videos have given you plenty of inspiration! If you’re ready to launch a killer strategy and consistent, high-quality content, the team at Marketing Insider Group can help. We can partner with you to create a customized content calendar and our writers can deliver publish-ready content every week for a year (or more!).

To learn more, check out our Content Builder Service or book a quick consultation with me!

One thought on “5 Best Content Marketing Videos of All Time

  1. privateblognetwork

    Wow! I am impressed with data and Videos. Great post. Thanks …. very good information structure….keep up the good work….

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Michael Brenner is an international keynote speaker, author of "Mean People Suck" and "The Content Formula", and Founder of Marketing Insider Group. Recognized as a Top Content Marketing expert and Digital Marketing Leader, Michael leverages his experience from roles in sales and marketing for global brands like SAP and Nielsen, as well as his leadership in leading teams and driving growth for thriving startups. Today, Michael delivers empowering keynotes on marketing and leadership, and facilitates actionable workshops on content marketing strategy. Connect with Michael today.

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